I reach the penultimate Paris post with a simple couple of photos:

Here’s the Champs-Elysees looking toward the Arc de Triomphe. I love the blue lights on all the trees that frame the Arc so nicely.

As far as I can tell, this Ferris Wheel was put up ‘temporarily’ in 2000 and has been in the Place De Concorde ever since, sitting halfway between the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe ever since. When IM Pei’s pyramid was built, people freaked out about it not fitting in with its surroundings. Meanwhile, this Ferris wheel breaks up one of the more famous stretches of city in the world, and I didn’t even know it was there until I was walking towards it. Still, I think this photo is pretty cool with the ferris wheel sitting in front of the obelisk.

(My mom found what this is — Pari Roller. Nice idea. I’m glad I stumbled upon it that night. It was fun to see. I also now realize a quick search for “Friday night rollerblading paris” turns this site up nice and easy. Good catch mom!)

After a long day at work, I was about 5 minutes from my hotel and I stumbled upon this. It was definitely organized since they had people in yellow vests and were tailed by a police escort and they all stopped at traffic lights (the reason I managed to get them all together was there was a long light that had just changed). It looks almost like Critical Mass on Roller Blades, but it was 11pm. There isn’t exactly a lot of traffic to disrupt, even in a big city like Paris. But it was on Boulevard Haussmann, which is one of the bigger streets.

Oh yeah, youtube compresses the shit out of this stuff, so it’s not nearly as good a video. I do like the woman trapped in front of me and how she even thinks for a second about trying to cross in the middle of it. Anyone know what this event is?

Ok, I have a number of posts for Paris and I have no particular order. My time there was short and it was mostly spent in the basement of a building setting up the new network, but the free time I had I feel as though was well spent.

My last trip to Paris, which I still haven’t posted about (the film is still on 2 disposable cameras), I ate very well. Two or three of the meals I had were just amazingly satisfying. However, it was during these times that the stress of knowing very little French was overwhelming. It’s very hard to look at a menu and have no clue what 1/2 of it is. So there’s a little adventure involved. This time around, my first night was a late night (finished work around 9:30pm) and I let my French coworkers choose and they wanted Italian. Good pizza, but not French food. My second night, I wanted French food, but I was tottering around exhausted and didn’t want to stress too much about it. I found a review in a crappy guidebook I had about a place that pretty much did steak called Le Relais De l’Entrecote. So I braved the cold and trekked out to find it. I walked up to it, realizing it was a Saturday and worried it would be a little full. Well, it was packed to the gills. Being very tired, I ended up settling for a baguette, cheese, swiss cookies and some Belgian beer. Not bad, but not quite the same.

Sunday rolled around and I decided that this place seemed intriguing. It was in a posh section of the VIIe arrondissement but the street it was on was full of mostly quiet, relaxed restaurants and this one was teeming. I figured, Paris being a city of late, marathon dinners, I would go near there and see when they began seating people. I showed up around 6pm and the place is pitchblack. But there’s already 4 people waiting out front and a sign on the door shows they open for dinner at 7pm on Sundays. Still, it’s completely dark inside. It’s freezing, so i head down the street a ways to get a beer and warm up. I show up at a quarter to seven and the line has only increased to about 8-10 people in front of me but the restaurant is still empty and dark. It nears 7pm and the line is about 20 people. Suddenly, at almost exactly 7, I see a couple of people stirring inside (you knew it was 7pm because the Eiffel Tower was completely lit at the top of the hour). Then, the lights flip on, the doors open and they start seating us.

I didn’t have to worry about my crappy language skillz because there was no menu. I got a nice seat i a corner to take in all the action and a friendly waitress wearing some sensible version of a french maid outfit. She asked if I wanted wine (yes, a house red please), water (still) and how I wanted my steak (medium). Meanwhile, in 10 minutes, the place was full, a line for the second seating was forming already. They started with a nice simple salad of greens, walnuts and some sort of mustard-based dressing. They have a private label house red which was nice.

Then out came the steak and frites:

The frites were tasty and the steak was nicely cooked. The sauce was interesting. Apparently, it’s one of those ‘we’ll never tell you the secret ingredients’ kind of sauces. There was definitely olive oil and mustard in it (they like mustard), but beyond that, I have no idea. But it was all really really good. Even crazier, the portion seemed a little small, but I was feeling happy and mopping up the sauce with some bread when out comes my waitress with another portion. Seconds! Cool! I finished it off with a helping of Lemon Sorbet soaked in a shot of Vodka. The dessert was when it was revealed that they technically have a menu. It’s for wines (but everyone was having the house red) and desserts.

So basically, they march people in and they serve you one dish that they do very well. I’ve never been to a restaurant where people are waiting outside for it to open. They operated on their own schedule and they knew what they were doing. I walked out full and very content to find there was still a line standing out in the freezing cold. Another successful French meal! Here’s the inside which was nicely decked out and felt like a large French bistro:

Last night, after a late dinner preceeded by a long day at work, I was walking back to my hotel which is right off Boulevard Haussmann. This also happens to be conveniently where the very large department stores are located. And, for the holidays, they appear to go all out. The exteriors are decked out in many many lights and the displays are linked together in winter themes, all done very nicely. It might have been 11pm and the stores might have been closed, but the windows were crowded with people checking out what the offerings this season were. Allow me to demonstrate pictorally:

This store takes up a city block and the entire store is covered in lights. It’s very impressive to check out.

The next block is home to Au Printemps. Even without the lights, I think this would be an amazing 19th century building (just look at the sign on it). Their lights were a little more subtle but had strobes flashing as accents as well.

I mentioned the window displays. Here are a couple of samples from Au Printemps

Every other window contained scenes of automated marionettes. This is a chorus of owls which would raise their wings in unison. A band is playing to the right of the photo. There were also scenes of foxes and deer.

In between the whimsy were the more classic windows with maneqins but still fit with the white winter theme of the more lively windows.

Another month, another trip to a European city 🙂

Here’s  my standard ‘suitcase in front of hotel bed pic’

The trip had a very cool beginning. The Eurostar to Paris has moved stations from Waterloo to St Pancras. They’ve taken a classic old station and fixed it up very nicely. On top of that, they’ve built dedicated rail through South London, which is notoriously conngested which means you can get to Paris in 2hrs 15min. Even better, St Pancras is literally 15 minutes from my flat, which means I can get from London to Paris in about 2 1/2 hours. Very cool. Here’s a shot of the trainshed at the station (I believe it’s one of the biggest in the world):

I’m here for work which has gone very smoothly so far. Coming up, some damn cool shots of Paris at Christmastime.

Greetings once again from Stockholm. I had one of the weirdest flights here. I ended up flying a low cost Danish carrier called Sterling. Until I got on the plane, I didn’t actually see a single person directly employed by them. The ticket counter had some company called Servisair. The gate just had some Gatwick employee. And, until I was on the plane, I could have managed to have no idea who I was flying with. Zero branding. Very odd in this day and age. Even better, they left the gate early. They had everyone on the plane, so they left 10 mintues early. And Stockholm is so efficient, I was off the plane and on the train to the city centre in 15 minutes. That’s getting off the plane, passport control, baggage claim, buying a ticket and an elevator down to the train. And the train goes like 100mph. Sweet.

Anyway, here’s yet another shot of another hotel room. This is another 2 day trip in and out. But it’s freezing and there’s only like 5 hours of daylight this time of year anyways 🙂

While my adventure in London didn’t offically start until January or February 2007, the fun really began on 13 October 2006. This was the first day of my sabbatical. Carolyn and I spent the first two weeks exploring southern Italy. However, we book-ended this part of the trip with a day or two in England. In a moment of irony, while visiting Dina and Adrian in Brighton during this original European trip, Dina asked Carolyn and I if we could see ourselves living in England. We laughed and said ‘sure’, but pointed out that it was more likely that they’d move to the US before we moved to Europe. Little did we know that would be very very untrue 🙂

Our last day of the sabbatical trip was spent in London. In honor of that (and in light of the fact that Carolyn is here right now), Dina came up to visit from Brighton and we did a little re-enactment of our fun there. We checked out the Tate Modern and wandered over the Millennium bridge again. Adrian wasn’t present, but it was a good time, nonetheless. I’ll post pictures and more fun about our day tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you feel like learning more about my sabbatical, check out my original blog.

Man, I’ve been bad. Well, this time, it was because of a last minute trip to Paris. Yep, I’m writing from Paris. I bought a ticket on Monday and hopped the eurostar on Tuesday night. Yes, the tough life. Hopefully, the work part won’t be as bad as I’m expecting. If so, then I get a day or two of free time to see the city. Alas, my digital camera died about 4 days ago, so I might not be able to post any pictures for a bit (I’m gonna look into getting some sort of single-use camera in the meantime). whee!

So I’m back in the lovely realm of London. I’ve got my cats and work should start being more normal. So, to get myself back in the blogging saddle, I’ll give some more fun with Frankfurt. This was a quick 2 day business trip, but I tried to have a little bit of the German experience.

Frankfurt is an odd city. It was pretty much levelled in World War II, so a lot of the old German charm was destroyed. As its become the financial centre of Germany, it’s got a lot of modernity to it. But there are definitely rebuilt buildings that retain an old-world charm to it. My company’s Frankfurt office is currently on the 27th floor of the Maintower, which is a nice building with a shitload of cool views.

Anyway, here’s a little of Frankfurt in pictures:

My office (the taller one) and my hotel (the shorter one). Easy commute and nice views!

The view from my hotel room. Alas, it was mostly rainy while I was there, but here’s a moment of clear sky.

Here would be a “typical” Germany meal. A whole lot of yummy pork. Mmmmm. In Frankfurt, this would be accompanied by Apfelwein, a fermented apple cider type drink. It’s dryer than a English cider.

I mentioned that not all of Frankfurt is new, corporate architecture. Here is the rebuilt opera house.

Just to make people jealous, here are a selection of pictures that hopefully illustrate my trip here. If you want more words, check out a previous writeup.

Here is Östermalm looking along some of the waterfront (there’s a lot of waterfront in Stockholm since part way between the North Sea and Baltic Sea)

Here is my rented bike in front of a museum on Djurgården

A Hot Chocolate and Cake break in a pretty square in Gamla Stan

The front of one of the many churches in Stockholm. This one is known for a sculpture of St George fighting the dragon he supposedly slayed.

A slice of modern Stockholm. Personally, I kind of like this sculpture.

For those patient enough to still be reading my blog, I’ll give you a treat. Three posts in one day. Hopefully, you like at least one of them.

So I had to go to Stockholm for a short weekend trip. We have our data center here and, my being new and all and us having some work to be done at odd hours, my coworker Ben and I scheduled a trip to Stockholm. Our plan was to get up very early on Saturday, rebuild a server and do some general maintenance and check out our little world in Sweden. I won’t bore you with the details, but we had one day scheduled for work and another day just in case things got ugly.

Fortunately, things did not get ugly and the work portion of the trip ended smoothly. Which left me a day to set out and explore a new city. While I’m pretty sure I’ll be back here at least once or twice, I wasn’t running around going “holy shit! What am I going to do with one day!” but I wanted to take in a sizeable chunk of the city. I decided that renting a bike would be the best option as it’s not a huge city and a bike allowed me to get a good sample of a very nice city.

Stockholm is divided into a number of sections (as a tourist, I’ll focus on the city centre). Gamla Stan is the original part of the city. With some hindsight, the government was able to preserve it with all it’s lovely buildings, churches and winding medieval streets. The same can’t be said for Norrmalm. In the 1950s-1970s, the city thought it was a good idea to tear down huge sections of the old buildings in this section (just north of Gamla Stan). As a result, there is a decent amount of not-so-pretty modernist buildings. But there is also some interesting modern stuff as well. Södermalm is south of Gamla Stan. It’s the bohemian edgy part of town (but bohemian and edgy in Sweden is pretty darn clean and well thought out. None of that converted warehouse kind of vibe. Just coffee shops and people with alternative looks). Östermalm is the ritzy part of town (West of Gamla Stan — some of you might catching a pattern in the naming of things in this part of Stockholm). It has some wide boulevards and expensive housing. Finally, there is DjurgÃ¥rden, an island west of Gamla Stan that has remained quite un-developed and has a lot of nice parks and trails.

In order to see all of this, I found a bike rental place on DjurgÃ¥rden. I took a four hour ride through all sorts of areas. It’s a very pretty city. It has a German/North European feel to it, with lots of dark roofs and pointed decorations on places like the churches. Each of the areas had it’s own feel (very old in Gamla Stan, newer and modern in Normmalm and so on). If you want to see 100 photos of the place, I have a slideshow here. My next post will have a selection of pictures for those who have no interest in a bunch of vacation photos :).
Some random thoughts. Even in April, it stays VERY light here for a long time. The sun was spreading light by 4:30am and it didn’t get dark until 9:00pm. I feel like an ass because I know absolutely no Swedish (I know a little more now) and people here know English soooo well. I know it’s been said that in this country people don’t mind that no one knows their language, but it’s still embarrassing to not even try to me. It’s also interesting how much my intense efforts to think like someone living in the UK have paid off. It took me most of yesterday to remember which side of the road cars were coming from (same side as the US) and I was converting Swedish Kroner into Pounds, not dollars. And I kept saying cheers instead of thanks (or Tack — thanks in Swedish).

Sweden really does live up to a lot of its reputation. It’s very well laid out, clean and the drivers are the most sane I’ve seen anywhere in Europe. It’s a bit of a shock coming from the chaos of London. Even the train from the airport was efficient. The airport is about 25 miles from the city and it took 20 minutes to get there (the train was going 200+ km/hr most of the ride!).

Food so far has actually been Belgian. For some reason, both places Ben and I decided to eat served a huge variety of Belgian beer and food. But it’s pretty heavy stuff, so I think dinner will be lighter. 🙂
Anyway, I enjoyed my first European maintenance day and it was nice to have a day to explore a very nice city. I’m not leaving until the morning, but this would be most of my trip in a nutshell.
Pictures are next!